Sublime

I play and keep playing because I choose to play. Even if it’s not your ideal life, you can always choose it. No matter what your life is, choosing it changes everything.

I tell the players: You’ll hear a lot of applause in your life, fellas, but none will mean more to you than that applause—from your peers. I hope each of you hears that at the end.

in the final of Key Biscayne, I beat Federer. It’s a good win. He’s as hot as anyone on tour. He came into this tournament with twenty-three wins so far this year.

He says, You have to suffer. You have to lose a shitload of close matches. And then one day you’re going to win a close one and the skies are going to part and you’re going to break through. You just need that one breakthrough, that one opening, and after that nothing will stop you from being the best in the world.

It’s my twentieth straight match victory, my fourth straight tournament victory. I’ve won sixty-three of seventy matches this year, forty-four of forty-six on hard court. Reporters ask if I feel invincible, and I say no. They think I’m being modest, but I’m telling the truth. It’s how I feel. It’s the only way I can allow myself to feel in the Summ

A short time later my mother tells me that the 60 Minutes report was actually an exposé on this Bollettieri character, who was in essence running a tennis sweatshop that employed child labor.

He talks about the difficulty of all human journeys—and yet, he says, there is clarity and nobility in just being a journeyer.

In closing, I utter the truest thing I’ve ever said about her. Ladies and gentleman, I introduce you to the greatest person I have ever known.